Eyes Closed
by fghtffyrdmns
Summary: George can't bring himself to look at Fred.  PostDH.


_Eyes Closed_.

George keeps his eyes firmly closed from the moment he takes his seat under the giant marquee. He remembers the last time this marquee sat in their backyard--Bill's wedding, a time that seems so long ago, like a part of another life. He tries to bring up images from that day; he doesn't want to cry today, he knows he has to put on a brave face for the rest of the world, because that is what the world expects from him: all smiles, all the time. But no memories return to him, no faces appear in his mind's eye save one, the very face he does not want to see ever again, that laughing, smiling face that could be his own--but it's not, it's--

No. He cannot even think the name, because that would be enough to bring back all the hurt that he is desperately trying to push away.

There are people speaking now; he feels his mother's hand on his shoulder and shakes it off. She has been so worried about him, and probably with good reason, but George never wants to have to face his family again. He never wants to have to sit down for dinner with them and look around the table and feel that absence once again. He's lost people he cares about before, of course, but this is different: George has never known before that sadness is not just a facial expression and a few involuntary tears; he realizes now that it is physical, it is an immense weight in the pit of his stomach that he's not quite sure he'll ever be able to shake off.

He can hear Harry speaking. George doesn't have to open his eyes to know what Harry looks like right now: his pale face will be distorted with anguish, even guilt. He listens as Harry chokingly recounts how he met--

_No_. Every time he hears that name the weight in his stomach grows, and George closes his eyes still more firmly, wishing he could erase that happy face from his mind forever. He remembers his brother's declaration, made only a few weeks ago, as if he could sense death headed his way.

_I wouldn't come back as a ghost, that would be bizarre, George--besides, you wouldn't want to see my ugly face again, right? I'll spare you the grief. Pity Moaning Myrtle didn't think like this, though_.

He suppresses a bitter laugh. He'll be seeing that face, he'll see it every time he looks in the mirror, every time he passes by a glass window--he is, in effect, his brother's ghost.

George can hear Ginny's sobs, but he cannot feel her pain. His grief is separate from that of everyone else sitting under this marquee; it has a different, deeper quality to it. He remembers all those stories he's heard, about the special connection between twins, and he wonders wildly if that connection stretches into the afterlife.

He doubts it, somehow. From the very moment of that fateful blast, something was missing, some special piece of him that had always been there, that he'd rarely noticed. Their connection was gone; his brother was gone, too, into a place where George could not yet follow him.

Someone lifts him to his feet: Ron. He wonders vaguely when his youngest brother became so self-assured--he remembers how easy it was to break Ron down as a child. But Ron is no more a child than he is now, and it is Ron who leads George up to the casket.

George still does not open his eyes. He cannot look at his brother again, cannot watch the coffin lid closed over the face that is a mirror of his own, cannot watch him lowered into the earth. He knows that he will have to open his eyes sooner or later, but he does not want to see this.

_Look at me_.

"What?" he breathes, still not daring to open his eyes.

_C'mon, George, look at me. I'm not _that_ ugly, am I?_

He doesn't understand what's going on--isn't their connection gone? Isn't _Fred_ gone--isn't he dead?

_Ah, good of you to finally accept it. Now have a look at me, George, before I go, otherwise you'll regret it._

"Please come back," George whispers. He knows it's stupid before the words ever leave him; Fred can't come back. But this connection isn't gone, is it? He can still hear Fred--is it so illogical to assume that he can bring Fred back?

_I'll always be with you._

George opens his eyes. No one is paying him any attention. They're all too wrapped up in their own, private grief; no one thinks of George, the twin who will now carry on alone, that essential half of him missing forever. He looks down at the open casket, his eyes fastened on his brother's peaceful face and closed eyes, his mouth still curled into a laugh. He could be sleeping.

As the lid is lowered onto the coffin, George swears that Fred's eyes flicker open for the tiniest of seconds. But the coffin is closed and lowered into the ground, and he knows he was mistaken. Fred isn't coming back to life.

Somehow, though, it doesn't bother him. Life will go on, and George knows he will go on with it. But his brother's memory will never die; George embraces this fact now: he is Fred's ghost.

And he knows that this is exactly how Fred would have wanted it.


End file.
